Mamata keeps cops off party network

Partha Chatterjee,the Leader of the Opposition and party secretary general,said: “We have got standing instructions from Didi not to make inroads in the police. She said the police have to remain apolitical and we will never use them for the interest of the party.”

Several police personnel have met the Trinamool chief,relating how they were being pressured to work according to orders of the ruling party,he said. “We have told them that if they want to help us form the government,they can set up an apolitical organisation and vote for us. But the Trinamool will never provide its name and political identity to any police organisation in the state. We have told them that their grievances will be addressed if we come into power.”

At present there are two organisations of the police in Bengal — West Bengal Police Association and Non Gazetted Police Karmachari Samity (NGPKS) and West Bengal Police Association (WBPA). Of these,the NGPKS is backed by the CPM,while WBPA is apparently apolitical.

As per the records of the organisations,the WBPA has around 32,000 registered members while the NGPKS has around 20,000.

The Bengal Police has a strength of 54,000,though there are 68,000 sanctioned posts—- 14,000 are lying vacant. In Kolkata police,there are around 27,000 personnel and there is only one organisation — the Kolkata Police association with around 26,000 members,which is controlled by the ruling party.

Over the last 34 years,the ruling party has given the CPM-controlled police organisation the rights of the trade unions. In all of the meetings of these two organisations,senior CPM leaders or ministers used to be present. In the last meeting of the NGPKS held in February,state finance minister Asim Dasgupta was present.

Sameer Ganguly,president of NGPKS,said: “We have placed all our demands before the state government and they were addressed. We are an association and sometimes we need to create pressure on the government for meeting our demands. At present,we want the vacant posts to be filled and our pay scale has to be increased.”

Significantly,the cadre revision committee is supposed to be set every three years for analysing the requirement of the police personnel. But the committee was not set up in the last 34 years.

Officials say the CPM-led organisations have prevented the setting up of committee. Moreover,over 5000 police personnel are posted from these organisations as personal security guards of leaders of district committee,zonal committee and local committee.

Bijitaswa Raut,general secretary of WBPA said: “Our organisation is apolitical since the beginning. We have been deprived the most in the tenure of the Front government. We do not impose any order on our members asking them to vote a particular political party. They are free to vote according to their will.”